When Pregnant Women Face Workplace Bias

June 24, 2018

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Erin Murphy, who has filed a complaint of pregnancy discrimination with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, with her sons, Wyatt, 3, at right, and Emrys, 13 months.CreditCreditThe New York Times

Your article is timely in an era in which women’s reproductive rights are being systematically undermined within the larger context of denying health care to millions of Americans. The strain of working while dealing with morning sickness and the other physical demands of pregnancy is compounded by the threat of demotion or dismissal in businesses that do not make appropriate and humane allowances for pregnancy.

The resulting stress puts women at risk for anxiety and depression, conditions that can have a negative effect not just on the pregnant woman and her family but also on the developing baby.

As a reproductive psychiatrist, I have seen this play out in many women’s lives, and the fact that little has changed in the more than 20 years that I’ve been doing this work is outrageous.

SHARI I. LUSSKIN, NEW YORK

The writer is a clinical professor of psychiatry, obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

To the Editor:

The observation that many women “never file complaints because they can’t afford an attorney, don’t recognize that what happened to them is illegal or fear retaliation” is especially true of mothers in low-wage jobs. And for them, losing a job is much more than a setback.

As a civil legal aid lawyer, I have represented pregnant women whose employers prohibited them from taking time off for prenatal medical appointments, ridiculed them for taking bathroom breaks and pushed them out of work because of restrictions on lifting. Many of these women assume that they are at fault because they chose to become pregnant.

Even when protective laws are in place, many women need legal help to assert their rights and keep working without putting their health, and their baby’s health, at risk. The cultural narrative that devalues women for having children will be disrupted only when all pregnant women are able to assert their workplace rights.

LAURA BROWN, WASHINGTON

The writer is a founder and the executive director of First Shift Justice Project, a civil legal aid group.